The 2013 joint annual conference of the South African Association for Language Teaching (SAALT), the Southern African Applied Linguistics Association (SAALA) and the Linguistics Society of Southern Africa (LSSA) will be held in the beautiful and historic town of Stellenbosch. The conference is being organised by Stellenbosch University’s Language Centre, as well as the Departments of General Linguistics, and Afrikaans and Dutch.

The theme of the conference, Language: Policy, Planning, Practice and Principles, highlights a contemporary global issue. Since the protection of cultural and linguistic diversity is of major concern, especially within an educational environment, the emphasis of this conference is on (i) the development and management of language policies; (ii) the language planning necessary for the implementation of language policies; (iii) the selection of the language support initiatives required in a multilingual environment, as well as the language practices employed by communities in order to exercise their language rights and their citizenship through language; and (iv) an understanding of the theoretical principles that underlie language.

Call for Papers:

We invite the submission of papers on current research addressing some aspect of the conference theme.

Longer papers (55 minutes): These comprise 40 minutes for presentation, and approximately 15 minutes for discussion. Delegates who opt for this paper also need to submit a full-length paper for review. Papers accepted by the review panel will be sorted according to theme in a special edition of SPIL PLUS (a Department of Education-accredited open source journal published by the Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University). Abstracts should consist of a minimum of 300 words but should not exceed 450 words.

Shorter papers (25 minutes): These comprise 20 minutes for presentation and approximately 5 minutes for discussion. Selected papers submitted in full to the review panel will also be considered for publication in SPIL PLUS. Abstracts should consist of a minimum of 300 words but should not exceed 450 words.